Pages

Sunday, July 9, 2017

I'd rather be lucky than good

I obsess and over-think things, and then my best plant combos tend to be complete accidents. Exhibit #437 is this:

You probably can't tell, but this was the Yucca I was given last year to rehab. It bloomed last year when I had it in a totally different spot getting full sun.

I didn't know where else to put it, so I stuck it in my least-shady-but-still-semi-shaded spot of the back yard. That spot is where I planted my first Peter's Purple Bee Balm (because I didn't know where else to put it), a large pot-bound Almond Verbena I bought on impulse (without having a place in mind), and some divided Canna Flambe.

It never occurred to me that:

It would bloom again so soon, or ever for that matter.

The bloom/buds would complement the canna so well, or vice-versa.

Here's a shot from just a few days earlier, when I realized it was re-blooming:

Note the Castor Bean in the lower left corner, and the last gasps of the Peter's Purple Bee Balm in the background.

It all looks so harmonious you'd think someone planned it...nuh-uh.

And what's the story with the Yucca re-blooming so soon? I'd like to pretend I'm a gardening savant, but I have no idea what I did or how to reproduce that next year. Maybe it responds to stress by sending up a bloom, and when I moved it I stressed it? I DID use a heavily enriched soil in that planting spot because the dirt over there was/is so poor...and here I worried that it was going to harm the Yucca. What do I know?